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What are you working on now?

Craig: Let’s start off by talking about The Movement Creative. I know that one of the things that it does is teach just regular Parkour classes, what most people think when they think of Parkour classes. I know that you also a lot more, so maybe give us a couple of examples of what The Movement Creative is really about.

Caitlin: Sure. We started out very focused on Parkour because that was all of our backgrounds, me and the two other founders, Nikkie and Jesse. [00:01:00] As we kind of grew in our community and really wanted to start getting all the generations moving and teenagers moving, and realizing that Parkour had a bit of a disconnect due to its stigma by the media. We’ve been moving more towards the arena of play and natural movement.

Craig: Give me an example of a project. Something that you’re working on now. You and I before had been talking about movement snacks, I believe it was?

Caitlin: Movement snacks is this [00:01:30] small little project Jesse and I started. It’s basically these little invitations to play that we put into parks, public spaces, or even schools which is where we started that project. An example of a movement snack would be may be maybe there’s a painted line on a curb and some words saying, “Can you balance here without falling off?” Or, next to a bench saying, “How many different ways can you get over me?” [00:02:00] They get tucked away in plain sight and people might come across them as they’re walking. There’s no rules as to who uses it, and it’s in a kind of a question, can you do this? All of these snacks — these really tiny little opportunities to deviate from your every day — they’re always designed to be super accessible.

What we’re trying to do is find new forms and ways we could [00:02:30] invite people to play. That’s the movement snack idea, it’s you’re walking by and you’re invited to balance. You’re invited to climb or to whatever it is… jump. Without those invitations, a lot of people … There’s like a social stigma to play, especially as you get older. It’s the whole idea of, “Quit playing around, get back to work!” These are little phrases that even penetrate our everyday life that affects the way we perceive [00:03:00] movement, perceive ourselves in relation to play. We need to find ways to say, “Hey, actually it’s okay to play, and it’s okay to play here.” That’s what movement snacks are. That’s what our programs are, and we teach people, “Hey, you can find places to play everywhere and the way you want to play.”

Craig: Right. Once they’ve re-discovered that inquisitive mindset, they start to look at their environment differently and then they go back to the way they did as a child.

Caitlin: You playing in public space, at your age, [00:03:30] at my parents age, you give other people permission to play. …yeah, because you’re so old.

Craig: Don’t do that.

Caitlin: Again, it increases like … Julie Angel talks a lot about his. You want to put images forth, normalize through visual experiences.

Craig: Yeah. What each of us … I’m talking to the listener. What each of us is sharing. We’re creating an image of the thing that we’re doing. [00:04:00] If you only share a certain type of image or only tell a certain type of story, or only let a certain type of your personal Parkour be spotted in public, then that’s what you’re creating.

Caitlin: Correct, and that the same thing about all of our public spaces. What do you see people do in our parks? They lay around. They sit on benches. They use recreational fields specifically for their purposes, but there’s nothing supporting play for adults. You don’t see adults often playing in public spaces, so there’s no permission given for it in our [00:04:30] experience of public space. That’s what we’re trying to do through programs. We bring adults into parks, and we’re playing in front of other adults, and by other adults seeing it, it’s giving them permission. Then, they may do it, and they get other adults. It’s hopefully a snowball effect.